Jietrospective Criticism. 547 



SCOTLAND. 



Great Improvements in the Manufacture of Hemp have taken place lately in 

 Scotland. The price of flax has for some time back been advancing, and is 

 now so high, that it exceeds double the price of hemp. This great difference 

 in price has engaged the attention of several individuals to substitute the one 

 for the other : the principal difficulty was, that the fibres of the hemp could 

 not be sufficiently separated for fine spinning. By the ingenuity of a gentle- 

 man in Arbroath, a machine has been contrived which has overcome this dif- 

 ficulty, and for which he has obtained a patent. The machine is very simple, 

 and consists of two fluted rollers of cast iron, through which the hemp is 

 passed to a pair of flat fluted rubbers, also of cast iron, worked alternately up 

 and down with considerable velocity. This operation more thoroughly breaks 

 the hemp, and disengages and throws off a gum which adheres to the fibres, 

 and prevents them from being sufficiently divided. After going through this 

 simple machine, the hemp is completely changed, and has become as soft as 

 flax ; the colour is also much improved : in fact, it is now equal to flax, and 

 applicable to most purposes for which flax is used. Although it is only a few 

 months since these machines were first made, one mill in Arbroath (Mr. 

 Straiton's) has given up the flax entirely, and is using the hemp instead ; and 

 several mills in Dundee are partially using the hemp for fine spinning. As a 

 great quantity of flax is grown in England, and an enormous quantity in Ire- 

 land, in which last country its culture is rapidly increasing; and as it exhausts the 

 ground so that successive crops cannot be raised, the above improvement will, 

 in all likelihood, reduce the price of flax, and raise the price of hemp, of which, 

 1 believe, several successive crops can be raised, and make the agriculturists 

 turn their attention to its cultivation. I am not aware if at present it is so 

 much cultivated as flax; but, I believe, the same ground that grows the flax will 

 grow the hemp, or, probably, poorer ground. We may perhaps grow it in 

 Scotland to better advantage than grain. — John Milne. 39. Laurieston Place^ 

 Edinburgh, June 15. 1835. 



Art. IV. Retrospective Criticism. 



De.Lindley''s Ladies' Botany. (X.390.) — Though I perfectly agree with you 

 in the approbation you express of this most useful and admirable work, 1 cer- 

 tainly think that Dr. Lindley should have called the attention of the ladies to the 

 peculiar structure of the genus Alstrcemeria. It is a genus which appears to 

 be preeminently entitled to notice ; and I almost think it ought to stand alone 

 in the natural system, as a genus destined by Providence to confirm the theory, 

 that plants cannot live unless the smooth side of the leaf is uppermost. The 

 terms surface and subface do appear applicable to it, as the leaves are invariably 

 united to the stem with the veiny side uppermost ; and then, by some secret 

 impulse, they turn the smooth side to the light, whUe that part which may be 

 termed the footstalk retains its veiny appearances, although fully exposed to 

 the same influence. 



I do not feel competent to criticise so able a work as the Ladies' Botany ; 

 but, on comparing the coloured representation of the alstroemeria, in pi. 18., 

 with a living specimen of the plant, it appears to me that the leaves in the 

 plate are made to grow with the smooth side uppermost, and then to turn 

 their veiny sides to the light, except one which seems to have a habit peculiar 

 to itself. But I have said enough, I trust, to call Dr. Lindley's attention to the 

 subject : a page from his pen would be valuable in the Magazine. — M. C. 

 Bingham, July 25. 1835. 



E,votics in a Flower-Garden, Sfc. (p. 285. and p. 380.) — Extremes upon any 

 subject, when asserted without modification, are hazardous, and liable to cri- 

 ticism : your " dictum," as J. has named it, has thus been attacked ; and your 

 opponent has some reason, as far as his taste goes in the choice of flowers, a§ 



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